rds added to make them pass as poetry.
Frequently, as in the French, these have a peculiar beauty. Victor
Hugo has imitated them with success; but to render them into English
is impossible.

The refrain, moreover, is closely allied to those couplets or
quatrains composed spontaneously at the dance or other merry-making of
the people. In many parts of Germany, the dances of harvest were until
recent days enlivened by the so-called _schnaderhuepfl_, a quatrain
sung to a simple air, composed on the spot, and often inclining to the
personal and the satiric. In earlier days this power to make a
quatrain off-hand seems to have been universal among the peasants of
Europe. In Scandinavia such quatrains are known as _stev_. They are
related, so far as their spontaneity, their universal character, and
their origin are concerned, to the _coplas_ of Spain, the _stornelli_
of Italy, and the distichs of modern Greece. Of course, the specimens
of this poetry which can be found now are rude enough; for the life
has gone out of it, and to find it at its best one must go back to
conditions which brought the undivided genius of the community into
play. What one finds nowadays is such motley as this,--a so-called
_runda_ from Vogtland, answering to the Bavarian _schnaderhuepfl_:--

I and my Hans,
We go to the dance;
And if no one will dance,
Dance I and my Hans!

A _schnaderhuepfl_ taken down at Appenzell in 1754, and one of the
oldest known, was sung by some lively girl as she danced at the
reapers' festival:--

Mine, mine, mine,--O my love is fine,
And my favor shall he plainly see;
Till the clock strike eight, till the clock strike nine,
My door, my door shall open be.

It is evident that the great mass of this poetry died with the
occasion that brought it forth, or lingered in oral tradition, exposed
to a thousand chances of oblivion. The Church made war upon these
songs, partly because of their erotic character, but mainly, one may
assume, because of the chain of tradition from heathen times which
linked them with feasts in honor of abhorred gods, and with rustic
dances at the old pagan harvest-home. A study of all this, however,
with material at a minimum, and conjecture or philological combination
as the only possible method of investigation, must be relegated to the
treatise and the monograph;[12] for present purposes we must confine
our exposition and search to songs that shall attract readers as well